


Bonding Over Mutual Hatred

by Nebulad



Series: Mind Over Murder [1]
Category: Saints Row
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8392606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: “What, I can’t see where you live?” she asked, her hands buried in her purple sweater. “You got titty posters up you don’t want the Boss to see?”“.... no.”He didn’t.She stopped upon entering his room, turning in one quick circle and then… “Ay dios mio Angel, you need a fucking hobby.”





	

“No offence but this place is a shit hole.” Fang was sitting on an old table that probably used to hold a slot machine, having entered surprisingly quiet for someone in heels. “I’m saying that as your friend, Angel. This place was an absolute bitch to fight through. What’s with all the chairs?”

“It was a casino,” he answered.

“Yeah fucking obviously. With business being what it is though, why ain’t you moved anything?” She kicked over a chair to emphasise her point, which was unnecessary. He’d fought the Luchadores too. The chairs were inconvenient but ultimately inconsequential— especially considering that Fang and her team had guns, for the most part (Oleg being the obvious exception, but Angel doubted _chairs_ were a big problem for him either).

Truthfully he hadn’t cleaned the place up because there was no point. What was he going to do with the extra space? Fighting Luchadores on his own turf wasn’t ideal anyway, and he’d avoided it for this long without issue. “Why are you here?” he responded instead, because she cared about results and not years of stewing resentment in an abandoned casino.

“Because I made you a fucking Lieutenant and didn’t canonize you,” she said, standing up. “And I figured it’d be bad to ask a load of guys to get their asses handed to them by a wrestler, so I came alone.”

“You want to fight me?”

“It was either you or Oleg so I picked the one I figured I could take,” she said with a shrug, moving towards the broken ring. She didn’t seem overly concerned about the prospect of fighting him, which was… kind of insulting, honestly.

“You made Kinzie a Lieutenant too.”

“Look, I wanna fight someone who maybe won’t be _into_ beating me up, all right?” Then she put up her fists. He looked down at her shoes. “Eyes are up here buddy, let’s go.”

“I’m not a boxer,” he said, not mentioning the fact that her pants weren’t any sort of flexible. Tight was one thing, allowing for movement was entirely another.

“You don’t get to pick your poison, Angel, square up.”

“Does Shaundi know you’re here?” he asked flatly. It was his impression that somehow she’d become the voice of reason between Fang and Pierce, and he was almost certain she’d protest coming to the gym alone to fight a stranger. Not to mention Oleg and Kinzie who would protest because it was a stupid idea.

“What, you gunna tell on me?”

“It’s either that or break your arm when you try to take a swing at me.” And he was damn diplomatic for warning her in advance, he thought.

“Try it, punk.” She _said_ it, but she didn’t throw a punch. She was hardly moving although he _was_ willing to assume her breadth of movement in heels was more impressive than he’d originally thought. He hadn’t really looked to see what shoes she was wearing when she fought the Luchadores, but he wouldn’t underestimate her.

“So you’re going to canonize me, but not Kinzie and Oleg?”

“See after you get it, you can go fight them. It’s a win-win, now are we gunna fight or what?” This time she swung, and he grabbed her fist and twisted it behind her back. She made about the same noise everyone made, but he noticed she didn’t really move to retaliate. It was contrary to every story he’d heard about her, especially the one where in the face of an oncoming _plane,_ she’d shot out the cockpit window and effortlessly glided through. She even managed to find a second parachute.

So it was strange then that she didn’t seem to have a plan for getting her arm back.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Look if this was a street fight I’d hand you your ass,” she warned. He believed it, but it was hard to win a fight you didn’t want in the first place. If she wanted to come at him for real, she’d probably put up a better fight than standing still and trying not to move in case it jostled her arm. “Or if I had a gun,” she added.

Also true.

“That isn’t an answer.”

“I don’t answer to you. Just drop me man, this didn’t… turn out like I planned.” He did as she said because he was sort of in her gang now and it seemed like the appropriate response. “Gat was always kinda in charge of canonising the baby gangsters rolling in. He was so good at keeping track he could look at someone in our colours and just _know_ whether or not they’d been through it.”

“So why isn’t _he_ here trying to fight me?” he asked. Stupid question, and her face fell.

“Yo, you got anything to drink in this place?” she asked instead of answering.

“Cheap beer.” The money wasn’t exactly rolling in, and whatever he’d had before being unmasked had been eaten away at years ago. He was lucky he could still get beer out of stores instead of vans.

“Perfect.” She kicked off her shoes and lost her height advantage, following him as he made his way back towards his room.

“You know, I could bring some out for you,” he said flatly, hyper-aware of how she was gawking at everything.

“What, I can’t see where you live?” she asked, her hands buried in her purple sweater. “You got titty posters up you don’t want the Boss to see?”

“.... no.”

He didn’t.

She stopped upon entering his room, turning in one quick circle and then… _“Ay dios mio_ Angel, you need a fucking hobby.” Apparently experiencing no real discomfort, she flopped over on his bed and grabbed a beer from one of the crates underneath it. “This ain’t piss, right?”

“Why—”

“I’m looking at a giant statue of yourself at the foot of your bed, pal. I can’t believe my mind jumped to _piss_ before _jizz.”_ She slammed the cap down on the table and popped open the bottle, grimacing as it went down. “Where’d you buy this shit?”

“Thunder Pump.” He grabbed a ratty chair by the television and pulled it up, because she didn’t look like she was going to move. In fact, she looked like she was trying to simultaneously drink and make peace with the multiple Killbane posters he’d destroyed.

“There are faster ways to kill me.” She shifted her back to the statue to look at the television, which was sporadically playing a commercial for Rusty’s Needle. “I like the purple,” she said, gesturing back to the giant him. “If you were a Luchador, why not green?”

“Angels of Death don’t wear green.” It was Eddie’s thing anyway, and gaudy besides. He was just the _Herald_ of the Walking Apocalypse, though it’d been set to change before… everything.

“They wear purple?”

“Apparently.”

“Anyone ever tell you how fucking chatty you are?” She opened another beer, having put away the last one in record time. He didn’t respond to her because he didn’t understand what the point of this exercise was. She _had_ to have better ways to spend her time and if she’d ask then he had some training for her to do, but it looked like she was settling in. “You asked about Johnny, before.”

He had, kind of. In retrospect he could sort of put together what’d happened, judging by her expression and the natural consequences of having a gang, but she looked ready to talk about it.

“He died. I mean fucking obviously, but Loren shot him. I wasn’t there because he said I had to bail, and so I fucking did because he was _Johnny Gat._ When he tells you he’s gunna land a nosediving plane in Stillwater after killing a group of bangers… you believe him, you know?” Personally he’d have a hard time believing that out of anyone’s mouth, but he refrained from saying so.

“Was he with the Saints long?” Not that it mattered, but it filled the silence as she cracked open her third. She was gunna drink him right out of supply.

“The longest. He was already a Lieutenant when I joined. We built the gang together, then rebuilt it every time it got torn apart. We lost so many fucking people, but you just never fucking think… you know?” She tilted her head back to chug and he thought about it for a minute, because in a way he did know. Killbane hadn’t died, but Angel lost him anyway. He might have rather he died, but didn’t think that applied to Fang’s situation. “All to let me bail. Fucking _waste,”_ she said, shaking her head. Just like that the third was gone and she was reaching clumsily for a fourth.

“Why stay in Steelport after killing Loren?” There was a lot about the gang he didn’t… get. It hadn’t mattered when Kinzie contacted him, because it was free backup made up of people willing to pin Eddie for him. For that, he’d team up with Matt fucking Miller if it came down to it.

“Because—” she had to take the beer from her mouth to say it, “—that fucking _pig_ Killbane _fucked up_ my best friend’s funeral. So what I’m gunna do is I’m gunna hunt that fucker to whatever hole he’s gunna crawl into to get away, and I’m gunna— I’m gunna fucking _flay_ him. Couldn’t— no fucking body, so we couldn’t even bury Johnny’s casket next to Eesh. _Fuck.”_ She tossed the bottle at the wall with no particular force, and it bounced off and hit the floor, rolling under the bed.

“Killbane won’t hide,” he said, tactfully ignoring how she was pawing at her eyes.

“Even _fucking better,”_ she hissed unevenly. _Good,_ he thought, but sat back and let her try and collect herself. “Fuck this, I gotta call Pierce and go… do this at my own fucking house.” She got to her feet, her weight shifting to one side unsteadily until she balanced herself on the statue, patting it on the arm like she wasn’t quite sure it wasn’t him. She was on the phone with Pierce after that, one hand on the wall to keep from tripping over boxes and old chairs that crowded the walkways. She hung up when she picked up her shoes, then turned back to her phone. After a few seconds of cursing and more button clicking than he thought was strictly necessary, his phone vibrated.

“I gotta leave my car here overnight. Don’t fuck up my car, Angel,” she warned as he opened his notifications. She’d transferred twenty-five thousand dollars to him. “I mean it,” she said as he looked back up at her. Four beers, one right after another like she’d had them… she was tipsy, but probably not twenty-five thousand dollars drunk.

“I won’t fuck up your car,” he said, mostly so she’d stop insisting.

“The money is for the crib, Angel,” she slurred, reaching up and squeezing his face. “Clean your fucking house once in awhile.” He didn’t get the chance to retort because Pierce was already outside— apparently he’d been in the neighbourhood anyway, although Angel couldn’t imagine what there was for him to do in Bridgeport. “I’ll call you tomorrow, yeah?” she asked, and he nodded. She made to walk away, but stopped abruptly. “Aerosmith or Men Without Hats?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me Angel, pick one.” He stared at her for a second, then shrugged.

“Aerosmith.”

“Good man,” she said, clapping him on the back. “Yo Pierce, put on Steven Tyler—” she called to the car, darting over to it fast enough that she managed to keep her balance. She wasn’t _that_ drunk, but sad tended to make _drunk_ a lot worse that it should be.

 _I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing_ poured out of the speakers before the car pulled away, and Angel turned on his heel to go back to what he was doing before the Boss had shown up. If they were going to take down Eddie, they needed a plan; and at least Fang seemed less and less like she was going to fuck up whatever plan he handed her. If nothing else, that was worth working with the Saints.

**Author's Note:**

> I.... wrote this. This is a thing that I wrote with my hands and brain. It took two days to write this thing. [My writing blog is here](http://nebulaad.tumblr.com) where I have written similar stuff, but so far this whole mess is one of a kind. Yikes, amirite.


End file.
